When talking about fan works, then fan art and fan fiction are probably the first terms that come into most people’s mind. But there are a lot of other possibilities for fans to express their affinity to the show, like fan comics, cosplay, anime music videos (AMV) and video reviews. Among those possibilities there is one in particular that can be missed quite easily which is fan music.
This kind of fan work is actually a bit harder to find, because there aren’t any central hubs where they are listed and categorized (like at FanFiction.net for fan fictions or at Deviant Art for fan art and cosplay). Furthermore, the amount of available SWAT Kats fan music seems to be way more limited. Having been busy in that field myself lately, I’ve decided to write this article, hoping that this increases the chance that these fan works get a little more attention and that it inspires more musicians to give it a try (there are actually quite a lot of in-episode themes which haven’t been covered yet ? ).
This article provides a little overview on the variety of fan music and also presents some examples you can listen to. This is not (and cannot be) a complete collection of all SWAT Kats fan music that has ever been made and so I encourage you to look for more fan music by yourself. YouTube and SoundCloud are probably two good places to start with.
The songs covered in this article are divided into the categories Cover versions, Remixes and Original works. In this context a song is being defined as a cover version if it uses most or all of the tunes of the original song, regardless if it’s just an emulation or a rearrangement. It is considered to be a remix if the title uses just a small portion of the original and mainly contains its own content. What’s important is that the tunes from the original can clearly be recognized at some point. Lastly, a song is considered to be an original work if it’s not using anything from the original SWAT Kats soundtrack, but still has been inspired by the show itself or by some other SWAT Kats fan work.